knout
English edit
Etymology edit
Via French knout from Russian кнут (knut), from Old East Slavic кнутъ (knutŭ), from Old Norse knútr (“knot in a cord”). Doublet of knot, node, and nodus.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
knout (plural knouts)
- A leather scourge (multi-tail whip), in the severe version known as 'great knout' with metal weights on each tongue, notoriously used in imperial Russia.
- 1832 October 27, Winthrop Mackworth Praed, Derwent Coleridge, “Tales out of School. A Dropt Letter from a Lady.”, in The Poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed, […]. In Two Volumes, 4th edition, volume II, London: E[dward] Moxon, Son & Co., […], published 1874, →OCLC, page 217:
- In Moscow, a Court carbonadoes / His ignorant serfs with the knout; / […] / But Eton has crueller terrors / Than these,—in the Windsor Express.
- 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in Vanity Fair:
- Torture in a public school is as much licensed as the knout in Russia.
- 1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers:
- Spray and then slogging knouts of water hit the windows or lights like snarling disaffected at a mansion of the rich and frivolous.
- 2005, James Meek, The People's Act of Love, Canongate, published 2006, page 193:
- The lieutenant gave him twenty strokes of the knout and stuck him in a cage for a few days till the snow was ankle deep.
Hypernyms edit
Translations edit
kind of whip
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Verb edit
knout (third-person singular simple present knouts, present participle knouting, simple past and past participle knouted)
- To flog or beat with a knout.
- 1992, Will Self, Cock and Bull:
- Different, isn’t it? It’s called kava, by the way. The Fijians make it by knouting some root or other.
Synonyms edit
- (to whip or scourge): Thesaurus:whip
Anagrams edit
French edit
Etymology edit
From Russian кнут (knut), from Old East Slavic кнутъ (knutŭ), from Old Norse knútr (“knot”). Doublet of nœud.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
knout m (plural knouts)
Descendants edit
- → English: knout
Further reading edit
- “knout”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.